


a valkyrie i will be

by wlwrwby



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, F/M, Nora Valkyrie needs a hug, Renora, no beta we die like redheads in rwby, v8 has hurt me so here's some more angst with a side of happiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-17 01:20:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28965996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wlwrwby/pseuds/wlwrwby
Summary: Lightning was once just lightning. Nora Valkyrie was once just Nora.And Nora Valkyrie used to know who she was.
Relationships: Lie Ren/Nora Valkyrie
Comments: 7
Kudos: 60





	a valkyrie i will be

You are two years old when your parents abandon you on the streets, leaving the kids who have made the alleyways their home to raise you in their place. 

You are five years old when lightning strikes the warehouse you’ve made a home in together. You’re the only one to make it out of the flames alive. For a reason that will remain unknown for years to come, the sky spared you. 

You are eight years old when you meet Lie Ren. It is then that you realize you don’t have a last name. It is then that you realize for the first time; you don’t quite know who you are. 

Your name is Nora. And you don’t quite yet realize what that means. 

* * *

“Ren?” 

“Yes Nora?”  
  
“Why do you have two names?” 

They were currently cooped up in the tattered living room of an abandoned house. The plan was to call this their home before they had to restock on supplies and get back on the move to whatever they decided their next destination would be. Such had been their routine ever since they had left Kuroyuri a month ago. 

Ren looked at her, thinking about it a second before answering. “I don’t know. It’s just my name. Everyone has two names, Nora. Don’t you?” 

Nora knew she didn’t. The only reason she knew her first name is because she had already learned it as a toddler. None of the other kids she had known had last names that she knew of. Or maybe they just didn’t tell her? 

“No.” 

Ren hummed and reassured her like he always did, those pink eyes drawing her attention like a magnet to metal. “That’s okay. Do you want one?”  
  
“Yeah!” She nodded with her usual enthusiasm, eager to have yet another thing in common with Ren. Besides, if everyone else had two names, why shouldn’t she?   


Ren easily matched her energy. “Okay. You should choose one!” 

Nora’s face scrunched up in deep thought. “I don’t know any good last names. I don’t want to steal yours either.”  
  
“Just pick something that you like. Something that sounds like you.” 

“Hmmm…”  


Ren giggled softly. “You don’t have to choose now!”  
  
“But I want to!”  
  
“Wait until you find the right one. You’ll know it when you see it.” 

* * *

Weeks later, Nora found her name in a book of mythology. The kids she lived with on the streets had taught her how to read, and with all of the free time she found herself with, she was far more literate than any child her age. She was undeniably intelligent, a fact that often got overshadowed by her large personality. But it was the truth nonetheless. She found herself enamored with all of the stories she could find: gods and goddesses, golden chariots, horses with wings. But the one that stood out to her the most was the Valkyries. 

Strong women who roamed the battlefield, deciding who lived and who died. They could control the numbers of good - and evil. Nora had seen far too much evil in her short life, more than most people would ever see in their entire lifetimes. So, to her, deciding that there was too much evil in the world and destroying it sounded pretty good to her. 

She told Ren that morning when she found him on the porch steps of the house they had temporarily claimed as their home, bathed in the rising sunlight. He turned to her at the sound of her entrance and smiled in greeting. 

“Valkyrie,” she told him proudly. 

Ren tilted his head, a question on his lips. “Hmm?” 

She looked towards the sunrise, a light filling her that she had never quite felt before. 

“Nora Valkyrie. That’s my name.”  


Ren smiled, his face lighting up in turn. “I love it.” 

There, in the rising sun that dimmed in comparison to the smile adorned on her face, Nora Valkyrie was born for the first time. 

* * *

They say lightning never struck the same place twice. Once upon a time, Nora might have believed it. 

But now, with every inch of her screaming in pain and electricity, the very air she struggled to breathe _burning_ like it had never before, Nora knew that they were wrong. Lightning struck twice, and it had come for her once more. 

After the pain had subsided and her vision cleared to reveal a panicked Ren and herself still very much alive, she had realized why the lightning that had killed everyone she once knew had spared her. She was a child of the sky, and lightning ran in her veins. Each breath was the stormy wind, her tears the rain, her voice as striking as thunder. She was a living force of nature. 

Nora Valkyrie was a storm. It was clear if you looked in her eyes in the midst of battle, her surname never reigning more true. With the strength of the sky itself, she chose who lived and died. 

With this newfound power, Nora made a vow: For as long as she walked Remnant, never again would lightning strike down those who were good. 

* * *

The world seemed to be constantly against them, but life went on. Ren and Nora became inseparable. One rarely saw them without the other. Their years on the road were to blame for this, of course. They depended on each other to watch their back, to keep them alive in this cruel world. And it worked. They survived despite it all. 

They applied to Beacon together and got in together. They became partners, shared a team, a room, a legacy. This was a fact that went unquestioned to everyone who knew them and the pair themselves. Ren and Nora, their names seemed to become one. An unbreakable partnership. Together, they were whole. 

Even the Fall of Beacon didn’t dare try to break them apart. No force was strong enough to break their bond. 

No force strong enough except for themselves. 

* * *

For the first time since Nora had met Ren, she couldn’t tell what was going through his head. Ever since they made it to Atlas, he had been acting differently. Every day, he became more and more of a stranger. 

It wasn’t just Nora who noticed this, either. On instinct, her teammates all asked her what was up with him, thinking that she of all people would know. Even Qrow pulled her aside after training to ask what was wrong. She was just in the dark as everyone else, but without Ren, she had never felt more alone. 

This, she knew: Ren was her second half. Ren made her whole. He had taken her hand and led her to her new life, her new beginning. And suddenly he was absolutely unrecognizable to her. 

He no longer looked at her with a fondness that melted both of their hearts, he never offered to brush her hair in the morning and night simply because he knew how much she loved it, he didn’t return her hugs when she gave them. His words to her were now lined with a harshness that he had once never dared use in her direction, he worked himself into the ground during training, he was dismissive towards every one of his teammates. 

And worst of all? He was loyal to _Ironwood_ over her. The words “Yes, sir,” had struck ice into her heart ever since her ears had processed them. That night she had returned to her dorm and cried herself to sleep. Ren didn’t return for a while. She faintly registered Jaune confronting him when he returned late in the night, but to no avail. Ren just brushed him off like everyone else. 

The next morning came with a briefing. Clover assigned Nora and Ren on a stakeout mission together, none the wiser to the apprehensive looks their teammates shared behind his back. 

“Ren, I’m worried about you.” 

They lay next to each other on the roof, eyes trained on the warehouse that was apparently a gang hideout. They were right next to each other, but they had never felt farther apart. 

“Now’s not the time Nora.”  
  
“Lie-” 

His voice was sharp and unforgiving. “Focus on the mission.” 

She looked away, unable to face this stranger any longer. 

“Fine.” 

* * *

They had split up. In the face of the end of the world, their teams split up. Ren and Nora went their different ways, both refusing to acknowledge the ache in their chests that worsened as the distance between them grew greater. It was in her conversation with Blake and Weiss that Nora had a realization. For the first time since she was eight years old with only one name to bear, she didn’t know who she was. 

_“I don’t actually know who I am, without Ren.”_

Her own words hurt. Saying them out loud solidified them as truth, cementing the weight on her chest that had been building for months. But they were just that: the truth. Before Ren, she had been nothing, right? That’s what she convinced herself. He had helped her become Nora Valkyrie, the woman she was today. But she no longer recognized that version of herself. Not without Ren by her side, not with the completely new person Ren had seemed to become. 

When Penny got separated from their group, she barely thought before making her decision. They all knew that she was the only one who could break through the door in time. This was something that she could do. So she _would_ do it. No matter the cost. 

“Be strong...and hit stuff.” That, she at least could do. She thrust Magnhild into the socket without regrets, ignoring the yells of protest behind her. She bore them no mind. 

She hadn’t felt this much pain since the day she discovered her semblance, when lightning struck from the sky and claimed her as its target and vessel for the rest of her life. Even so, this was worse. She could control it, but barely. It threatened to consume her at the first sign of weakness. Lucky for her, she was the farthest thing from weak. 

Her body felt as if it was burning from the inside, the flames moving from her torso to her head. She smelled her skin and hair burning. She both saw and felt her veins burning with a blinding light. Her throat tore with her scream of power and pain. 

She was so close to breaking. Yet, in all of her life, Nora Valkyrie had never felt more invincible. 

The door opened. Words fell from her mouth without her knowledge of what they were, her surroundings blurred and spun and she could no longer tell which way was up. She blinked and she was on the ground. 

Before she knew no more, she registered the lightning scars adorning her skin. And she knew without a doubt that she would carry them for the rest of her life. 

Nora knew she could live with that. 

* * *

_Healing takes a long time. And so, we skip ahead to what some would consider an end._

_Years passed. In the final battle, there had been a moment in which Salem had looked at Nora, amusement and curiosity clear on her face._

_“What is your name, child?”  
  
Nora turned at the voice of the ancient. The air began to spark, thunder drummed in the distance, her eyes alight with an electric charge, her veins glowing. In the face of the storm herself, Salem took a step back. _

_“My name,” the storm had said, “is Nora Valkyrie. And I’m one of the last faces you’ll ever see.”  
  
Lightning struck Salem. And then it struck twice. And again and again and again. _

_Nora Valkyrie played a crucial role in the defeat of Salem, and the world remembered her name. They all did._

_. . ._

_“Ren?”_

_The war had been over for but a few days, and the sense of freedom had not quite set in just yet. It almost felt like a dream. A beautiful, wonderful dream that no one wanted to wake up from._

_But if it was truly a dream, Nora wanted to make it a good one._

_“Ren?”  
  
He turned to give her his full attention, his eyes softening at the mere sight of her and sound of her voice._

_“Yes, love?”_

_Nora mirrored his lovestruck look._

_“Do you remember when I chose my last name?”_

_“Of course I do,” Ren replied, moving closer to wrap his arms around her waist as they talked._

_“Remember how I said that I didn’t want to steal yours?”_

_“I do.”  
  
Nora paused, smiling broadly, an excited laugh bursting from her lips in anticipation. Ren only tilted his head and raised a brow in question, unable to stop the smile her mere presence caused._

_“Well,” Nora swayed, her eyes locked onto his, “I think I changed my mind.”_

_A pause._

_Ren blinked and his head jerked back ever so slightly like it always did when he was surprised, a sight that never failed to make Nora giggle. He looked at her, dumbfounded, a blush on his cheeks._

_“Did...did you just propose to me?”_

_Nora nodded, her smile contagious. “Yep!”_

_Her smile faded as she caught sight of the sudden tears welling in Ren’s eyes.  
  
“Ah! Wait, no, please don’t cry, I hate seeing you cry-”_

_Her worried rambling was cut off when Ren pulled her into a firm embrace, his face buried in her hair. He held her as if she was the most precious thing in the world. And to him, she was._

_“Yes.” It was muffled and watery, but Nora heard it loud and clear._

_Later, he asked her if she really wanted to take his name. He knew how important Valkyrie was to her, but she also knew how important his family name was to him. So, they settled on both._

_They were a part of each other, and together they felt whole. They had learned who they were without the other, and they were proud of that person. They had grown and lived and loved and still decided that they wanted to spend their lives together. So that’s what they did._

_Nora and Lie Valkyrie-Ren had a good ring to it._

* * *

The war is over and you’re twenty three years old. You’re scarred in more ways than one, but you’re alive. Not everyone can say that. 

You’re standing at the altar and staring at the love of your life. He’s grown and beautiful and your greatest joy. 

The vows are completed and you share a kiss before turning to your cheering family. 

Then, you know. 

You are strong and have survived fighting in a centuries year long war. You chose your own name and your path. You love fiercely and deeply and would do anything for those you love. You are the gentlest of spring winds and the fiercest of summer storms. You are a force of nature. 

Your name is Nora Valkyrie-Ren. And without a shred of doubt, you know exactly what that means. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! This has been in the works for a while and I kind of got stuck near the end so I just hoped for the best lmao and wrote whatever came to mind. I hope you enjoyed, and if you did, feel free to leave a kudos or comment if you'd like! Once again, thanks for reading, it means the world to me<33 I hope you all have a lovely day!


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